


The Princess, On Her Night

by OtoRose, ZoeGMiller



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femininity, Gender, Slow Burn, and hinoka being embarrassed and flustered, and sagacious older ladies!!!, even though I'm thinking of Orochi as like... 24 and Reina as 28 o_o;;;;;, gender stuff, wankgst?, yearning!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-16 11:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10570428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtoRose/pseuds/OtoRose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeGMiller/pseuds/ZoeGMiller
Summary: As her debut as the eldest princess of Hoshido approaches, Hinoka finds it difficult to assume the mantle of her responsibility. With guidance from Orochi and Reina, she reluctantly steps into her role, but the Rite of Ascension is a precise ritual. Thankfully, for Hinoka, mistakes may have unintended... consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I’m Zoh! And woah, this is a non-smut thing from me! :o It's been a while!!
> 
> ...it's also just been a while, yeah? >.> Sorry!
> 
> So this is a cute thing that's kind of a continuing timeline from an unfinished [Orochi/Mikoto story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6148104/chapters/14086464) I wrote allllllll the way back. Years after crushing hard on her queen (and many pints of whatever the Hoshido equivalent of sadness ice cream is) Orochi discovers she may've fallen for the next generation instead! XD
> 
> It's the most lore-y thing I've done, probably, and I have another chapter in the bank--and then after that, maybe some smut can sneak its way in--so please enjoy and look forward to it! orz orz orz
> 
> If you enjoy this, please take a look at my [commission rates](https://zoegmiller.wordpress.com/commissions/) and my [patreon](https://www.patreon.com/zohg)!
> 
> Happy reading! <3

Hinoka’s legs ached.

_Ladies and men of Hoshido…_

She was accustomed, now, to extended exercise and strain. She had begun training with pegasi at the age of seven, and had hardly spent a single free moment outside of the stables since the awful day...

Best not to think on that.

_My beloved servants of Hoshido_ —drat, no.

Her legs shook, when she wasn’t careful. Despite powerful thighs built for hard effort, everyone has limits, and she had been standing in front of the huge, ornate mirror since sunup as retainers fussed over her.

Though this was to be expected: the robes and jewelry of the Rite of Ascendance were intricate—every hairpin and every tie had not just a ritual method, but a ritual meaning. The fact that HER retainers insisted upon being part of the preparation, however, made the process no swifter. Azuma, once granted entry, had knelt in the corner, offered only "what is adulthood? Death, but through the eyes of others" and had hardly moved before being summarily ejected. Setsuna had somehow suspended herself from the ceiling in her first attempt to tie an obi.

And Hinoka had, for the most part, fussed and fidgeted throughout the entire, day-long ordeal, thankful for the moments of distraction, when eyes were on suspended Setsuna and she could breathe without looking in the polished brass mirror that seemed to calculate and track her ongoing descent into ritual femininity. She was only too happy to let the inevitable be delayed.

But it was _inevitable_ , wasn’t it?

Thus, midday came ‘round with precious little progress to show for it, and there was only one thing to do: call in professionals.

When Orochi and Reina arrived, Hinoka felt some strange relief despite herself—ah, adults! They'd handle everything. With precision and grace, her mother’s retainers went to work. Orochi flitted about her like a butterfly, pulling robes close, adjusting and creating form as a stoic Reina deftly closed these shapes around Hinoka's body with traditional water-blessed rope and silken ties in ornate knots.

That relief soon congealed into a new form of disappointment, as the robes draped and tied around Hinoka's lithe, toned frame failed to transmute her into the emblem of beatific womanhood her mother represented. Never had she felt more childish than on this, the eve of her twentieth birthday, and her official coming out as the eldest princess of Hoshido. It was a dual, yet paradoxical disappointment: Hinoka resented these robes for what the mythical image of femininity they represented, and yet she also resented that they failed to bestow her that same image, when forced upon her.

She tried to focus on her speech.

_Loyal servants of our b-beloved Hoshido…_

Then there was the matter of the hair. She flinched this way and that as the pins and clips went in, her relative lack of experience with them amplifying a fear of being poked and prodded at the scalp. Orochi's dexterous hands had to redouble their efforts just to ensure that Hinoka's rabbit-like quavering did not become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“O-our bold and… noble… charges; gathered here today we… we… we…” Hinoka swallowed, suppressing a groan of frustration as her head was urged forward and her short bangs fell into her face. Frustrated bloomed red on her cheeks, and her hands balled into fists. “W-what is it now, Orochi?”

"Your hair." Orochi filled the space of her pause with a mild sigh. The sun was slinking behind the distant, snow-capped mountains already; it was hardly an hour before the ceremonial banquet. "I've been working on you all day, Hinoka-poo, and there is not a Single. Thing. I. Can. Do.” Noting the consternation that claimed the Princess’s visage, Orochi braced her with a smile, and a squeeze on the shoulder. “Never you fear! What style we lose in hair, we’ll gain in makeup." The flighty woman, herself complicated and ornate, who moved with fluid grace despite the heavy bangles and rosary beads that adorned her slim arms and the majestic array of decorative combs and pins of her intricate hairstyle, reached for jars of pigment and brushes small enough that gods of grass could dance upon their single bristles. "Relax. Sit. You'll be just fine."

Sit? Relax? Hinoka’s thighs and rump ached from standing all day, it was true, but it wasn’t a seat they craved. Her haunches yearned to spring into motion, to dash away and find her beloved mount, to take to the skies and soar—or to even pick up her training lance and whack away at a straw dummy in an empty courtyard. Anything but this!

And, especially, anything but what might come after...

And _makeup_?

"No," Hinoka said firmly, though her reddening cheeks (she hardly needed rouge!) and wilting gaze transmuted that denial almost into a petulant whine as it broke the air, the sound trailing into the echo of a childish _do I haaaave to?_

Reina lifted Hinoka's arm to tie off a thick tress in her gown, and Hinoka cleaved to her—a powerful knight of the sky, like Hinoka aspired to be—for support in this engagement. Though she did not know her mother's retainer especially well, the blue-haired warrior hardly seemed the type to give into parlor games and court antics. If Hinoka had an ally in this plight against caked-on beauty and the encumbrance of jewelry and gowns, it was surely stoic Reina!

In response to Hinoka’s plaintive look, Reina cleared her throat, furrowed her brow, and, after a moment, broke her silence.

"My parents were magistrates when I became a pegasus knight,” she said. “I was required to attend many a court banquet in my day, before I joined the kinshi, and your mother’s service. And yours..." the faintest hints of a smile surfaced on her face. "Are not the first ceremonial silks I've arranged, or knots I've closed.”

Was that the hint of a blush on Orochi's cheeks? Her own cosmetics were artful and careful, and did well to conceal this new, natural pinkness. Conspicuously silent through the exchange, she rallied. "Besides, I've done your divination! It's extremely important that you look your best tonight!" She nodded, firmly, the many brass bracelets on her left arm clinking. "Now, sit!"

Hinoka settled down into her chair and straightened her back, attempting to assume the role of a proud and indefatigable ruler that she'd present on stage—the confident, self-assured, eldest daughter of Hoshido on the long-awaited night of her debut as an adult. The first coming out of a royal princess since long before her birth. It was fair to say the nation was in a dizzied fervor of anticipation. And still, Hinoka had only one thing on her mind... and it was hardly the make-up.

_My dutiful subjects of Hoshido…_

But the make-up was certainly the most present. And so she clarified her position, and her timidity. "I mean... really, must we, Orochi?"

Orochi's fingers pressed softly against Hinoka's cheek—delicate and beautiful, for someone so fierce. "We must. It is tradition, and I promise it will make you look so very ravishing!" Her grin was easy and wide, and with a soft ivory she began applying a foundation. "Don't think on the makeup. Tell us a bit about the words you've planned, show us the Princess of Hoshido you plan to reveal to the nation!"

The word 'ravishing' triggered some uncategorized and unpleasant thought in Hinoka’s mind, and the pit of her stomach sunk a little. For some reason she found herself painfully aware of her breasts, and how the tight ties of her robe seemed to emphasize the shape of her curves despite her modest bosom and the thickness of the cloth. She sighed, biting her lip and trying to relax into the ticklish feeling of Orochi's tender brush strokes along her cheeks.

Reina emphasized Orochi's statement by braiding a silk through and around one of Hinoka's shoulders and pulling it taut, a tight sensation at her shoulder even as Orochi practically caressed with the gentle ivory. "It'll be important. They love you, and they take strength from you. This is everything you are." The warrior—with a casual comfort and confidence, which Hinoka envied almost as much as the soft leathers of Reina’s military uniform—grunted, and the corner of her mouth quirked up, patterning against the crossed scars on her face as she gently tied the brocade loops at Hinoka’s chest. Her tone softened. “Take heart. The ladies in this room have suffered similar trials, and both lived to tell the tale"

Hinoka's face made a show of shifting, both as she struggled to accept Reina's advice and she struggled to avoid bursting into laughter at the thought of strong and scarred Reina in these ridiculously ornate robes—the latter bringing a mirthful wrinkle to her nose. She glanced between her attendants. It was a trial to keep her coltish body still, and thus, she sublimated that energy with her eyes, darting them back and forth as Reina and Orochi manipulated her like some precious doll.

“The speech?” she asked. “It’s all but written for me… I’m to be proud, yet magnanimous; bold, yet gentle; fierce yet…” Forgetting herself in daydream, the young princess all but smiled, for a moment.

“Head up!” Orochi chastised, playful yet stern, pushing a finger beneath Hinoka’s daydream-drooped chin, so that the light caught the eldest daughter’s cheekbones and Orochi could continue her work.

Hinoka flinched to attention—to reality—at Orochi's order. Her posture became rigid and her broad shoulders set, and she was obedient... for a time, her expression turning rueful, even as Orochi's paints drew out those deep lines of beauty from her youthful face. "But if you've divined it, then surely you must know what happens, isn't that so, Orochi? If you told me what you saw," she began, solicitously, and oddly shy, and her hands gripping gently at empty air as Reina lifted and manipulated her arms to tie off her sleeve. "It might put my mind at ease, isn't that right?"

A tremor took Orochi’s heart. It was just last night she had laid out the cards, and frowned, and collected them, and laid them out once more before summoning Kagero. The kunoichi had, with heavy heart, refused to interfere, for reasons of her own, so there had been only one other choice…

Here, Reina decided to interject, glancing over the top of Hinoka's head and leveling a conspiratorial gaze at the young fortune teller, and interrupting her reminiscence. "Even better, you might tell Hinoka the tragedy of your own royal debut."

"Oh, I know that," said Hinoka, eyes bright with innocence, a quick smile creasing the corners of lips. "It's one of mother's favorite stories. You predicted she'd fall into the fountain, isn't that right? How mortifying!"

With Orochi uncharacteristically silent for a moment, Reina softly said, "Oh, that's only half the story. It was the talk of the court all evening, the things Orochi said before our queen, your mother." Deft, calloused fingered expertly adjusted the crease of Hinoka's tall collar, and a bit of mirth softened Reina’s stern features, in the face of Hinoka's trenchant naivety. "But to my memory, the truly mortifying part came after."

"That's quite enough.” Orochi sternly said, as red as her rouge-pot. “It's a night to weave new tales of the princess’s debut, not rehash those stale stories of ours."

"Indeed," said Reina, with a couched smile.

Orochi favored Reina with a narrowing of her eyes. "That lack of subtlety is why I am responsible for her hair and makeup while you tie knots." The look that filtered across her face was arch, almost inscrutable. She turned her attention to Hinoka once more, highlighting her cheeks, lining her eyes, painstakingly. "We began calling her the Butcher because of how she treats hair." Orochi's own hair was as elaborate as ever, lifted high and pinned under to create an ornate crest, but for some reason a simple, white leather strap was laced through the locks of hair secured by the pins. “Close your eyes.” Gently, she swept a bit of powder along Hinoka’s eyelids, and Hinoka felt a ticklish wriggle run through her blunt nose. "And pay no mind to your divination; if I said it was good you would not believe me, and if I said you fell in a fountain you'd not go. But you MUST go. It was certain on that point."

Reina scoffed, glancing down at Hinoka's hair—it'd been shimmered, smoothed, pinned out of her eyes, her cropped locks given an almost feminine cast beneath the sun-emblem crown pinned precariously into the back.

Feeling unsated, but slightly more at ease, Hinoka obeyed, for a time. The room fell silent but for the gentle susurration of brushes against skin and the whisper of cloth as the women committed themselves to the final flourishes of their duty. Orochi's fingers roamed down Hinoka’s neck, gently turning her head this way and that to apply detail and contour, layer upon layer paper thin, until one could suspect that Orochi's brushes were empty, that she was simply tormenting the girl for the delight of it.

At some of these touches, chaste though they may’ve been, Hinoka would tremble a little—caught as if between conflicting desires to shy away from this strange intimacy and to throw herself bodily into it, into the skilled, yet somewhat cold, hands of the beautiful women gilding her. Her lips parted, and her breath quickened just a pace in her chest, at the thought of their proximity, and all that might entail. Through the make-up, she could feel her skin ready to bead into sweat. It was nerves, she told herself.

And then, after a time, it was over.

"Perfect,” said Orochi, placing the last of her brushes on the table beside her. She stepped out of the way of the mirror, and the face staring back at Hinoka was oddly intense. It was unmistakably her own, but... moreso. An afternoon of sitting, finished… and a strange woman looking back at her in the mirror. Her snub nose was adorable, demure, her lips plush enough to pout, but set firm. The liner on her eyes seemed to focus the gaze on that part of her face, as though she were sizing up an opponent. In one moment, a delicate princess; in the next, a ferocious warrior. But undeniably feminine throughout—indeed, it was a cocksure, headstrong femininity that Orochi had drawn out, uniquely Hinoka in every way.

_Proud people of the sun, my noble Hoshidan brothers and sisters…_

Hinoka raised her hands to touch her face, as if to confirm it still belonged to her.

Reina favored the younger woman with a smile. "Don't touch it or worry at it, it'll smudge."

The warning halted the princess full stop, and Hinoka hastily bused her hands cupping each other in her lap.

...but it was strange, to look at herself in the mirror this way. Though the thought of having make-up applied had risen a nausea in her gut whose cause she hadn't fully understood, the face that looked at her now, even made up as it was, had nothing to do with the reflection of her mother's feminine grace that she expected; for some reason she couldn't explain, that comforted her. “It’s—”

“Perfect, as I said.” A prideful grin bloomed across Orochi’s face. “An image befitting Hoshido's proudest warrior and Princess."

“If you're quite finished praising your own work,” Reina interjected, “Hoshido’s proudest warrior and Princess still has a banquet to attend.”

With grin unfaltering, the fortune-teller folded her hands, faux-demure, between her breasts, providing room for Hinoka, in her robes and crown, to stand and lead her new procession.Hinoka stood with uneasy, affected grace. The wooden sandals were uncomfortable to walk on, and she yearned from the constrictive comfort of her riding boots. The sun sigil crown pinned to her short hair and the yards of cloth wrapped around her were heavier than any armor or helmet upon her shoulders and head. Though the robes draped wide around her form, they pulled dramatically tight around her legs, so she could only shift forward in meager steps, when her body craved its usual loping stride. To one so accustomed to soaring freedom, such demure shuffling barely seemed like movement at all.

Hinoka had managed to avoid robes like this for many years—since the sakura festivals of her youth. Since those days of blooming flowers, she had bloomed too, followed a path she might never have expected, and grown into a woman—and these robes had only grown more constrictive in their absence.

But Reina and Orochi were waiting, as were all those beyond the dressing chamber’s doors. She took the first few steps, tearing herself away from the trance-inducing mirror, and stepped thoughtfully, practicing her movements...

...and only as she reached her chamber’s sliding door, and the murmurs of the waiting crowd of retainers, servants, maids, and attendants reached her ears, did she begin to shake.

"I can't," she said, with quiet urgency, turning to appeal the inchoate procession of two behind her (indeed, their presence could only remind her of how many more were waiting to join in the hall outside, and had been for hours).

Reina and Orochi looked to her, then to each other.

"I can't," Hinoka said, simply. She wasn’t ready. There had to be someone else who could do this. Anyone would do. “Sakura,” she spoke to herself, in a pained whisper. There had to be another princess of Hoshido who could do this—anyone but her.

Another odd, shared glance passed between Orochi and Reina.

Reina nodded, eliding past Hinoka with a watery grace, and stepping into the hall as befitted Hoshidan Guard—that is to say: protectively. The door opened, the small crowd came alive at even the brief glimpse of the princess in her formal garb, some of the younger servants—many of them young enough to have never seen a princess at her debut—going as far to crowd the door in the excitement.

"Step back. Princess Hinoka requires room to breathe." Reina turned to a minor functionary, with considerably more expensive clothing, and considerably worse makeup, than the Princess herself. "Princess Hinoka has ordered that you summon Princess Sakura. Just as each citizen of Hoshido relies upon the next for safety and prosperity, the royal family shall present itself united in support of its citizenry."

It was no secret, of course, what was missing from Hinoka's heart, and as Reina addressed the mass, so Orochi took the Princess by the shoulders, kept her upright, her robes and makeup and spirits in order.

"I was not to tell anyone, Princess. But a year ago, on the anniversary of your mother’s ascendancy, I read that the family would one day be rejoined. She ordered that I not speak of what I foresaw in that fortune, but…" Orochi looked away for a moment, fretting at her lip with her teeth. "Even if your family cannot _all_ be present for this occasion, it will not much longer be apart.”

“All my family?” Hinoka asked, as if in a daze. The murmurs of the crowd were like war drums in her ears, and her eyes with glossy with confusion. “You mean to say…”

_My loyal Hoshidans. Long have we suffered the loss of…_

With a firm grip upon Hinoka’s shoulder, Orochi stripped the tall Princess from the clouds of her thoughts and back to ground. “You will be the one who leads us to that future, the free spirit and ferocity that sustains us until that day." She took Hinoka’s rough hands in her soft ones, clasping them in quiet entreaty. "We all need you, and your bravery."

But even as she spoke these confident words, Orochi internally faltered. She’d never been so close to the Princess, and never noticed the litheness of her, the muscle. With her eyes, perhaps, as she tied and measured; but never pressed against her like this, with such immediacy.

Hinoka, too, found herself swept away by Orochi’s close embrace. Gone were the cool touches of her attendant who dressed her hair. Orochi’s hands were warm around hers, and her face was so close that Hinoka could smell the sweet, summertime scent of cherries that lingered on her breath. It reminded Hinoka of a different time, and, eddied by sensation and memory and Orochi’s generous, bodily warmth, she parted her lips to—

Like the sun from behind a cloud, Princess Sakura emerged, her robes emblazoned, characteristically, in white, red, pink—those of a priestess in training—and the corridor fairly sparked with resplendent cherry blossoms as she hurried to her sister’s side. With that smile, with a hug and a hopeful tug of the hand, Sakura beckoned the older princess forward, and Orochi released her, with some regret, under Reina's watchful gaze.

Sakura’s face was flushed and, though she tried to hide it, her breath came in short pants. Unlike her older siblings, Sakura had no aptitude for physical exertion. She must nevertheless have practically run—in her ceremonial robes and sandals!— to her sister’s side upon hearing her need. Brave young Sakura selflessly lifted her head and smiled, despite the shortness of her breath, and clasped Hinoka by the hands, just as Orochi had done moments ago. “They said you had need of me?”

Family. _All_ my family.

Her thoughts cleared, and she felt the vacuum within her fill.

“Need?” The sight of this selflessness sparked something in Hinoka. She screwed her bravery deep within herself, and put on a face unwavering—Sakura was still a child, barely a teenager, it was hardly her duty to muster the confidence her eldest sister lacked. Standing tall and taking her sister firmly by the wrists, Hinoka offered a smile almost cocky in the face of Sakura’s generous, unblinking concern. “Only that I wanted you to be the first to see me like this.”

“Oh, Hinoka.” Sakura’s evident worry for her sister’s well-being washed away with a girlish titter. She took her taller sister by the arms and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “I should only hope to be half as beautiful as you, on my own day of my Ascendancy.”

As Hinoka faltered before Sakura’s fearsome wave of compliments, looking away and descending into stammers and blushes, beneath her breath Reina spoke to the fortune teller.

"Must I tell you everything, again?” She set eyes upon the conspicuously simple leather strap woven in amid Orochi’s many ornate hair ornaments. “I've no more hair ties to give."

An undaunted smile answered the knight’s chagrin; Orochi had become deft and daring in such escapades, and likely it was only Reina who could remember a time when she was not. "We serve, with our lives and hearts,” Orochi said, with a rakish wrinkle of her nose and a knowing wink. “And a heart as strong as hers deserves everything ours can give."

With that, Orochi closed the sliding door behind them, and the two attendants followed the procession to the great courtyard and the banquet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all rituals go as planned.

The cool air, as afternoon transitioned into evening, wafted over Hinoka’s face as she entered the courtyard proper, and provided her some relief from the cloying heat and closeness of the corridor. She found some measure of balance on her wooden sandals, and moved with a grace closer befitting her station as the procession reached the courtyard proper.

The palace courtyard, with its manicured plaza and cherry trees, so wide open and dutifully maintained, was normally less a gathering place than a point of beauty. As the procession made its way through the palace doors, it was greeted by the sudden flare of lanterns strung through the air, lighting the evening sky with the bright red of their paper shades.

Red, of course, for the Princess Ascendant, whose hand barely shook at all against the grip of her younger sister. Dark wood tables, long and low with cushions to sit upon, had been set throughout the plaza, and already the gathered nobility, the magistrates, the merchants and commoners alike of the capital sat waiting for her entrance. Roasted pheasant and other game birds bedecked the tables, courtesy of Takumi and, once freed from her… entanglements, Setsuna. A promising young spearwoman in service to Takumi had managed to bring in not one, but two tremendous boars that morning, fresh from turns on the spit, and fishing farm villages had supplied fruit and produce aplenty for their beloved Princess.

Properly, the seats at the head of the Great Table, normally for Queen Mikoto and her consort, were vacant; she was seated adjacent. Instead three empty cushions waited for their guests. The crowd raised a cheer as the procession spilled down the steps into the plaza, and Azuma and Setsuna, not without some prodding, took their dazed places standing by the central seat.

Sakura gave her sister’s hand a squeeze, and favored her with the beneficent smile that so blessed the palace. “They love you. _I_ love you.”

And then Sakura released her older sister, to take her place by Ryoma and by Takumi, and all eyes, expectant, were on Princess Hinoka to sit, and to begin the grand banquet that would precede her ascendancy.

With her hands dutifully kept in her sleeves in front of her at all times, Hinoka led her procession to the head table. She held her face calm. Let it not be obvious, how a day trapped in stasis inside a cloistered dressing chamber had somehow built a rapacious hunger in her worse than she’d experienced coming back from any spar or hunt. Relief shuddered through her at the thought. She was _starving_ —at least the hunger mortared over some of her fear.

Emboldened by the subtle smile the Queen Mikoto offered as her daughter took up this seat at the head of her table, Hinoka swallowed, facing the assembly, and watching attendants scurry through the crowd with long tallows for lighting the  the sun cloistered itself behind the nearby mountains, and . The rich aroma of boar meat set her head to spinning and her stomach to growling. Briefly, her gorge rose with her guilt, this being the first hunt since she was very young that Hinoka was not required to take part in.

“Loyal folk of H-hoshido...”

Her voice cracked.

Oh! Gods be damned! What sort of woman was she? What cause had subjects to respect a Queen with a voice like a puberty-addled boy?

Her hands shook in her sleeves. The memory of Sakura’s fingers wrapped around hers…

Oh! If only all her blood relatives present could offer her that same smile, that same squeeze that Sakura did. Perhaps if Takumi and Ryoma and her mother lined up one by one to offer their perfect words of encouragement, Hinoka could hold to that small measure of bravado she was able to offer Sakura mere moments ago. Instead, this ungodly affair fizzled her, and she yearned only for her seat.

It was the hunger, surely.

Queen Mikoto smiled through the short invocation, and nodded as her daughter knelt, approval and permission both. Yukimura leaned in to her shoulder for a few words, and she sighed openly; few could hear the exchange, but it was clear that it was his opinion that this ritual performance belonged to Hinoka, that it would strengthen her, that she must stand on her own—and that, while the Queen might have agreed, it was equally clear from the look on her face as she gazed over that she longed to be there, to take her daughter’s hand and offer her strength, particularly in the face of the stoic Ryoma and taciturn Takumi, and the single cushion that sat empty.

At that worried look from her mother, Hinoka marshalled what meager reserves remained inside her. She stood tall and spoke with a firmness—if also an unfortunate hurriedness.

“In the sight of my mother, the Queen Mikoto, you honor me with your presence, on this day of my Ascension, and it is my f-firm hope that this feast does you due honor in return.” Overcome by the heated flush rising in her face, Hinoka offered a stilted bow of thanks and removed her hands from her sleeves, taking her seat at the table (though, later, some might’ve said it was closer to a “collapse”), grateful that, for the most part, eyes were off her and onto the food.

In a daze, she listened to the banter of her attendants around her. “Why’d she spend all that time practicing in her room if it was that short?” asked Setsuna, examining a piece of boar meat between her chopsticks. Azama, already with a mouthful of greens, replied. “That was only the convocation. The real speech comes after the feast.”

Hinoka, without a mind for her food, could only do her best not to rub hands against the cloying feeling of makeup upon her heated face. She placed them, pointedly ladylike, in her lap as she knelt upon her cushion. Unconsciously, she scanned the assemblage, hoping to find Reina or Orochi in the crowd.

Orochi was never hard to place—by Queen Mikoto’s side, as her retainer and Diviner, though kept nearly close as a ward. She fawned over the woman, laughed raucously at terrible jokes she herself made in between draughts from bowls of miso soup. But Reina...

She sat beneath a cherry tree, rather than at the table, one leg cocked up before her and one thrust out, like some careless raconteur, as she sipped from a saucer of sake. Her bow and naginata were propped beside her. Nobody sat near the Butcher. Nobody _stood_ near the Butcher. Even in combat, there was no place for another by Reina’s side. She’d neither speak nor collaborate, but simply glory in taking pound after pound of flesh and bathing in blood. She had no bonds, no friends, so it seemed; the Butcher ate alone, but never incautiously.

Setsuna who grabbed Hinoka’s hand. As though to offer her strength… but then to push a skewer of grilled game into it.

“You gotta eat.” She murmured, eyes lazy, but a smile on her face. “Do you know how long it took me to trap this hare? By myself?” Not _shoot_ , but _trap_. Upon careful inspection, her cheeks and hands were slightly scuffed. “Go ahead. It’s yu~mmy!”

It seemed to cause Hinoka some dismay. She was sure she sensed Reina’s presence behind her, but etiquette precluded her from twisting around in her seat like a child. Curiosity and lack of place dug into her like fresh pain.

And, oddly, the tree by which she ate was farthest from the magistrates, behind and to the side of Hinoka—on the opposite side of Queen Mikoto. But this raised no voices.

“You’re pale.” Setsuna murmured. With a dog-like tilt of her head, she seemed to assess some invisible strands tightening between the objects of Hinoka’s gaze. “And _sta~aring_.”

“I wasn’t _staring_.” She uttered, as sharply as she could, as Setsuna offered a welcome distraction from her staring. She couldn’t help but wonder about that, what was stirring in her, and it caused her some deep, mortifying embarrassment, knowing how obvious she was being—if Setsuna had noticed, likely everyone in the country had. “And I’m not pale; it’s make-up, you dolt,” she spoke with some affection to her retainer, who’d always treated her like contemporary more than anything.

“Ah~” Setsuna said. “Lady Hinoka looks nice in makeup.” Azama, drinking only water and eating only greens, apparently oblivious, nodded. Setsuna pressed another skewer into Hinoka’s hand, pushed sweet sake in front of her, and forged on, unusually talkative. “If you faint, you’ll trap me under you. Come on!”

Hunger overcame Hinoka. She ate with rapidity. Then, as the spiking cackle of Orochi’s self-satisfied laugh broke the air, Hinoka felt the small hairs on the back of her neck rise with her blush and, on instinct, she snatched up the small saucer of wine and downed it in a somewhat ignoble heave.

“Gweh!” The tremendous gasp as she surfaced up burst into a bevy of hoarse, quiet coughs as her chest struggled to stabilize the burn coursing through it. Of course she’d sipped at wine before, but she’d never taken a full drink as... such. Misty-eyed, she wobbled, and asked. “...I-is it always so strong?”

When the Princess drank, the gathered crowd gave a sudden, rousing cheer, as with a single voice raising a toast. Setsuna laughed aloud—for her, a muffled “heeeee” qualified as a guffaw, and something warm and soft pressed against the Princess’s back.

With a voice like warm oil, Orochi leaned over Hinoka’s shoulder. “Sometimes it’s stronger.”

At that, Hinoka ducked her head, and hoped the makeup concealed her blush.

“You’re brave, for your first time! It took me _years_ to learn to throw them back!” Queen Mikoto giggled behind her hand, and Takumi’s nose went into the air. “Take ‘em slower, Princess.” The smell of cherry wine, across Hinoka’s cheek. Orochi, perhaps, had not taken them quite so slowly. But Orochi had practice. “Your cheeks’ll match your hair, if you don’t sip the next one. But they loved that. That’s what _we_ love about you. All the fire in your cheeks and your hair and your spirit.”

The belt of wine buoyed her confidence as much as the Orochi’s praise, though, internally, Hinoka was sure that it was clear to all and sundry how the blush on her cheeks had less to do with wine and more with the fleeting, and now gone, pressure of Orochi’s full breasts against her back.

Orochi gave Azuma a shove, straight into Yukimura, to get room to kneel beside the princess, and share the meal with her.

Her prowess proved, Hinoka took further forays into the wine with gentle sips, the saucer held in both hands, the picture of delicacy, as if she’d borrowed a serving from Sakura. She listened to Orochi’s stories with greedy attention, and perhaps it was the wine, or her naivety, that insulated her from the full understanding of some of the fortune teller’s verbal gaffes—though they deepened her blush all the same.

Then, quite without warning, Orochi’s expression grew stern. Speaking as soft as her fingers touching down on Hinoka’s upper arm, she said, “The royal family needs hope. Hoshido needs hope. And you’re our, with your strong spear an’ your spread wings an’ bright eyes an’ your… perfect… muscles...” She slurred the last few words, near-inaudibly, prompting an authoritative cough from the Queen. “Oh, right!” Orochi brightened, correcting her posture. “I came over to prime you. It’s time for the Ascension. Sakura will perform the blessing—don’t worry, it’s short—and we’ll set off fireworks. And then you speak. Got it?”

 _Already?_ But she’d only... and... perhaps another saucer of wine? She almost reached for it, despite herself. Not a saucer, a bottle instead? _Now?_ How could it be _now_?

But as this tempest raged inside of her, Hinoka could only meekly swallow, and nod, and reply, “...g-got it...”

“You’ve got it,” Orochi confirmed with a nod, and a flicker of her booze-weighted eyelids. There was a clatter of a plate by the roots of a nearby tree and Orochi, in the guise of escorting Hinoka upwards, took her by the arm and elbow, pressing herself to the Princess and providing support. When did she become so strong? Her spear arm, her riding thighs, so firm, and...

Orochi abruptly released the Princess, and knelt beside her. She was not so far gone to wine as to have forgotten her place. Sakura stood waiting with salt and rod, to purify and to bless, eyes shining with confidence.

Guided in a tizzy, and with the generous curves of Orochi’s body bracing her, Hinoka was hardly conscious until reality shaped her back into sense, standing on unsteady feet, and ruing the discomfort of her sandals, her robe, and her ungainly, unfeminine shape, as she stared dumbly into Sakura’s pleasantly beaming face, waiting for the blessing to begin. And her mother’s words, delivered to her by proxy, come ringing back through her head.

 _Our family._ These words of her mother, conveyed to her, circle around inside her skull. _All our family._

Sakura did her very best to adopt an air of seriousness. To Hinoka, it was clear that she was just as nervous, being so young, performing so serious a duty. And that serious expression lasted almost as long as it took to purify the ground with salt, and begin the expressive gestures of the ritual, paper talismans pulling in the wind, hanging from the tip of the rod.

Sakura’s smile was mystifying, Hinoka thought. How did she manage it so?

Our family.

Unlike Hinoka, Sakura had never known her middle sister, never played with her. She was too young to feel the loss, but here she was, clad in robe and sandals, with salt and rod and smile doing her best to soothe Hinoka’s own ache, her own fears. Sakura took the cares of others onto herself. A tremendous job, for this family and this nation. If she could do that, could Hinoka not be the spirit that replenished their hearts now? It would be a failure of herself, her station, her country.

In her blessing, Sakura called upon the gods favored by the tribes of Hoshido, fire and wind. She sang of the ancient dragons, the progenitors of the royal family, and called upon their power, which was said to run still in those of royal blood. Her long sleeves fluttered against a rise of the nighttime wind, as she called upon the gods of the world to purify Hinoka from without, and Hinoka’s own dragon blood, that of her family, to purify her from within, and to direct her, to give her purpose as a Princess, to guide her wisely and fire the strength of her arm. Sakura’s voice rose and fell in its oddly-tuned chant, her feet coming together, her body stilling, the circular motion of her rod completing the blessing.

As the song went on, Hinoka removed her hands from her sleeves-an unstably gesture-and touched her face to find where tears hard streaked her makeup. She was crying? She’d never felt any particular connection to these songs before...

From the table, Orochi, in traditional dress and hair and red-cheeked, smiled up at Hinoka, and bit her lip.

Four cushions away, that last seat sat empty.

And before the throng, Hinoka stood alone.

The world was silent for a long moment of anticipation before Yukimura raised his hands, pulling at strings and launching a cavalcade of fireworks aloft. They blossomed in the air, bursting with vibrant energy, as if to lend their power to the stultified Princess before.

Red and White, for Princess Hinoka.

Red and White, for the Sky Princess.

The crowd cheered with each ripple of sound and fury.

The crowd quieted, but it was that chair, as much as the shimmering eyes of Orochi or the expectation of the crowd, that made the insistent plea to Princess Hinoka, as though the blood of the dragon itself commanded her speech. How many times had she looked at that empty seat, during that song?

Watching the fireworks as if in a trance, Hinoka was eddied by thoughts. It was so much. All of it was so much. The empty seat, and the things Orochi had told her, and the way she looked at her, and the feel of her body against her, and wondering if someone far away would ever get to feel those things—warmth of bodies, and love of families, and the butterflies in her stomach when Hinoka looked at Orochi and found Orochi gazing back at her, and the casual smile and gentle wave of fingers the older woman offered that had Hinoka dart her gaze away and act as if she’d never been looking in the first place.

When the last of the fireworks fizzled in the night sky, and the moon shone its cold light upon her, was when Hinoka realized what she already knew. She had no choice in the matter, did she ever?

The empty cushion beside her siblings inflicted its mute judgment upon her.

“Brave and loyal subjects of H-hoshido...”

That adolescent crack of her voice again. _Again!_ She choked, feeling her throat closing, cloyed by unshed tears and fresh grief. But against this, even this, she held firm.

“The... Rite of Ascendancy is one of our longest held traditions. And... I am proud, to be the first woman since the time of my mother, the queen, to undertake this noble...”

Her head had begun to spin, and she felt sick.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “It’s... my first experience, with cherry wine... and...”

Playing it off as such, some mirth filtered through the crowd, unseating the awkwardness of their stares, and that small smudge of boldness inserted something into her, the Sky Princess. Already tall, she stood a little taller still.

“Having experienced the honor of your love tonight, I can only think on, and look forward to, my own sister’s rite, in the coming years. Sakura, you are among my greatest treasures in life, and I know...” She coughed, again, looking down. “I know you will do our family proud. But I...”

A fire stirred, somewhere deep within her belly. The muddled emotions of a missing sister, and the graceless touch of a drunken fortune teller, and the compression of breasts against her back... and... all these yearnings and...

A different Hinoka emerged. A bold one, even through the tears, who says. “My beloved people of Hoshido, our country has suffered a wound in silence! Even as I know I am blessed in this family, with this mother, with all my brothers and sisters, both by birth and by nation, long ago a hole was rent in my heart, one I swore from an early age I would repair.”

A worried murmur passed the crowd.

 _A hole was rent through my heart._ At that, Orochi thought of the woman who’d stayed by her bedside and wept when a younger Diviner had sought to protect her liege from a pack of wild dogs and been injured, who’d made her Retainer to protect her and keep her whole.

Half-soused though she might have been, Orochi had told no lies. The crowd loved its Princess, the very spirit of Hoshido. She stared upwards as Hinoka stood, tears on her cheeks that matched Mikoto’s own. Hinoka was the fierce, proud spirit of the nation, Mikoto the wise mind. Ryoma the strong arms of Hoshido, Sakura its loving heart, Takumi its... kidney. Something disagreeable but vital, functional and necessary but withdrawn and occasionally full of bile...

Orochi was yanked from her musings by Hinoka’s voice—husky, stirring, full with emotion. She laughed with the crowd, and with Mikoto, when Hinoka stumbled over wine, and steadfastly ignored the way Hinoka rallied, raised her eyes.

Like a woman climbing out of a fountain, humbled but no less dignified or beautiful...

She choked on the thought, forced her eyes up to the night sky. A gentle hand on her shoulder. Mikoto’s.

“That is why, though it pains me to do so, especially on this night of celebration, I must announce that I formally reject the Rite of Ascendance.”

The murmur became a chorus of gasps. Saucers tumbled to the ground, splitting and spilling their alcohol, leaving numb fingers bereft. A murmur rushed through the crowd. A glance to Reina, to Mikoto - neither wavered. Mikoto, through tears, raised her chin and smiled.

 

And she saw the Princess stand true, and remembered her divination, nodding to Reina, who stood by her tree, bow and naginata at her back.

Hinoka steadied her stance upon the dais. “And though it may be a stain upon the honor of my house, I know my family has weathered stronger storms; indeed, I cannot except this honor because of the stain it would bring to my own. The Rite of Ascendance should be a time for joy and hope, of looking forward, towards the future, and what the future might bring. But what hope does she have, my sister? OUR sister, Corrin? What ruler would I be, if I indulged in my own pleasure, in my own future, joined the court, sought suitors, or whatever else, while she suffers in ignominy? And so, here I must make my formal announcement: I will not Ascend, I will not court, I will not wed.” At those words of Hinoka, Orochi lost, felt a blackness beneath her heart, reached to her pinned hair, felt the leather running through it. “I will do _nothing_ of the sort, until my beloved sister is safe in my arms once more!”

Though the silence fairly defeaned all present, none more stunned Hinoka than herself.

Bright fires burn quickly, however. A meeker voice followed, as she returned her hands to her sleeves and gives a deeply prostrated bow. “Please forgive me for my insolence on this e-evening,” the final word came out in a choke, almost a squeal. “I hope you’ll find some merriment in my absence.”

The ungainly sound of sandals upon cobblestone heralded her escape into the night.

And, so desperate and hasty in her escape, Hinoka denied herself the opportunity to hear the crowd unanimously leap to its feat in cheer, the power and strength of the words ringing in the hearts of magistrates and commoners alike, who were not so blind as to value a ritual feast over love and family.

Orochi was already standing when Mikoto touched her shoulder.

“Go.”

It was all the Queen said. All she needed to say. She joined Yukimura and began taming the crowd, who were near to calling for Nohrian blood. Orochi, heart beating fast, burst into a run, encumbered by ceremonial sandals or flowing robes. She could hardly keep up with Reina! By the second time Reina had to stop and wait for her, the seer panting with shortness of breath, they had lost any hope of catching up the fleeting Princess.

Orochi belayed Reina with a clutch of her hand—a question, she needed a question! Reina asked, and Orochi had her cards out to answer it in seconds. And, a few moments and shared glances later, the two started towards the corner of the palace, towards a wooded, seldom-visited meditation-garden.

“Duty,” murmured Reina, treading the palace floors.

Orochi could not, this one and single time, bring herself to agree.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooof! Another thing I've had in the hopper for some time (ahhhh, for about a year, if i read my email right o_o;)! Please excuse any typos, my eyes are glazing over and I thought I'd rather have it out and done and circle back for a clean-up pass later!
> 
> As always, we appreciate comments more LONG DELAYED CHAPTER 2 RELEASES. I am available for commissions currently via my [Patreon](http://www.patreon.com/zohg), and you can find us on twitter [(zoh)](https://twitter.com/zoegmiller), [(rose)](https://twitter.com/otorosegarden), tumblr [(zoh)](http://zoegmiller.tumblr.com/), [(rose)](http://oto-rose-garden.tumblr.com/), curious cat [(just zoh, for now!)](https://curiouscat.me/zohg). All sorts of places! <3

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work and feel like leaving a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
> 
> If you’re interested in my other works, you can find my stuff at my website [bespokesmut.com](http://www.bespokesmut.com), you can drop requests for short fiction in my [tumblr ask box](http://zoegmiller.tumblr.com), you can find my commission info [here](https://zoegmiller.wordpress.com/commissions/), and don’t forget to look me up on [patreon](https://www.patreon.com/zohg)!!
> 
> <3 Thank you for reading! <3


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